Activity
Rereading some of BoI and I noticed some passages missing citations.
For example, chapter 12:
… [P]hysicist Ernst Mach (father of Ludwig Mach of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer), who was also a positivist philosopher, influenced Einstein, spurring him to eliminate untested assumptions from physics – including Newton’s assumption that time flows at the same rate for all observers.
Citation needed. Where and when and how did Mach influence Einstein? How does Deutsch know this?
That happened to be an excellent idea. But Mach’s positivism also caused him to oppose the resulting theory of relativity, essentially because it claimed that spacetime really exists even though it cannot be ‘directly’ observed.
Need to quote Mach opposing Einstein. It would have to be something to the effect of: ‘I disagree with Einstein about spacetime because it can’t be directly observed.’
Mach also resolutely denied the existence of atoms, because they were too small to observe.
Where did Mach say that? Specifically, how does DD know Mach denied atoms “resolutely”? If there are no primary sources, maybe there are some secondary ones? Skipping some:
… [W]hen the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann used atomic theory to unify thermodynamics and mechanics, he was so vilified by Mach and other positivists that he was driven to despair, which may have contributed to his suicide…
Need a quote by Mach showing how he vilified Boltzmann, and another showing that Boltzmann was indeed driven to despair.
We could just take DD’s word for it and assume he’s right on all of these counts. But we can’t know for a fact. Without citations, it’s harder for us as readers to verify these claims. Maybe DD used citations and just didn’t specify them. Or maybe he didn’t use any in the first place and just went off memory, which is error prone.